Agartala: Tripura woke up on Friday to news of a bereavement that stretched nerves taut on the eve of the results of the Assembly elections that have acquired overnight national political significance, belying the state's modest size.

CPM leader Khagendra Jamatia passed away at AIIMS in New Delhi on Friday morning while undergoing treatment for leukaemia. He was 64. Jamatia was a six-time winner from the Krishnapur Assembly constituency in Khowai district, 50km from here. This time, too, he had contested from the same seat.

Deputy chief electoral officer Debashish Modak said the votes polled in Krishnapur would be counted on Saturday along with that in other seats. If the mandate is found to be in Jamatia's favour, another round of polling will have to be held in the seat.

On February 11 - a week before Tripura went to polls - another CPM candidate, from Charilam, Ramendra Narayan Debbarma, had died. The election in the seat has been suspended and rescheduled for March 12.

Under normal circumstances, uncertainty about two seats should not have been a factor at all in Tripura, where the Left has been sweeping elections for the past 25 years without a break. In the last Assembly elections, the Left had bagged as many as 50 of the 60 seats and its tally had gone up by one more after a bypoll.

But this time, the BJP concentrated its firepower on Tripura and some exit polls have forecast an upset.

Either way, the Tripura result is expected to have some bearing on national politics. If chief minister Manik Sarkar retains power, it will strengthen the anti-Congress group in the CPM. If the Left is voted out, it will offer the Sitaram Yechury camp another reason to make a push for a pact with the Congress to check the BJP.